xAI removes the distinction between researcher and engineer titles, unifying all technical staff under the single designation of engineer across the company
Elon Musk called the old system a two-tier academic convention.
#4Yann LeCun@YLECUNMajor difference in my mind: - an engineer, given a problem, invents and tries multiple solutions and stops when the solution is good enough. The goal is product innovation and shipping. - a scientist asks new questions, proposes various new solutions, compares them (sometimes with old ones), and writes about it. The methodology must be sound or else peers will sneer. The goal is scientific breakthroughs and technological progress.
Both can be called "researchers". Many people can do both: these are activities, not identities.
Importantly, most product innovations are built on scientific breakthroughs and technological innovations that happened 2, 5, 10, or 20 years earlier.
François Fleuret@francoisfleuretIMO a researcher studies a problem that may not be solvable, while an engineer solves a problem that is considered solvable.
@iScienceLuvr Putting “Ph.D.” in your social media name is a sure sign of a pompous retard
Tanishq Mathew Abraham, Ph.D.@iScienceLuvrThis sort of mindset is probably why xAI failed to catch up to other frontier labs. If he wants to make SpaceXAI into a frontier lab, hope he changes his mindset. Though being a cloud provider is probably something they can easily excel in anyway lol (Colossus is impressive!)
#150David Pfau@PFAUIt's bad enough that they got rid of "scientist" (IMO because most orgs stopped pursuing fundamental questions and abandoned publishing). Now this. No respect for ideas, just grind and build until you keel over and die.
Yacine Mahdid@yacinelearning
#153Gary Marcus@GARYMARCUSPeople who don’t understand science think Elon is a genius.
People who do understand science realize he is not.
Parmita Mishra@parmitaThis is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my life
he’s not dumb and certainly his IQ is above average but as I wrote somewhere before “I think that Musk has consistently made a dumb set of choices - largely stemming from a mix of four cognitive errors: (a) overestimating his own intelligence, (b) undervaluing the expertise of others, (c) relying too much on his own echo chamber, without the slightest effort to question what he is fed, and (d) underestimating how hard some of his errors will be to fix.”
Gary Marcus@GaryMarcusPeople who don’t understand science think Elon is a genius. People who do understand science realize he is not.
hilarious how all the objections to this post about how elon understands engineering better than science point to elon’s engineering accomplishments, rather than his (meager) record of scientific innovation.
people who understand science get my point; people who don’t, don’t. 🤣
Gary Marcus@GaryMarcusPeople who don’t understand science think Elon is a genius. People who do understand science realize he is not.
#153Gary Marcus@GARYMARCUSi disagree. but it’s up there!
Parmita Mishra@parmitaThis is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my life
#153Gary Marcus@GARYMARCUS@beffjezos @elonmusk @iScienceLuvr oh come on Beff.
Gary Marcus@GaryMarcusHa. @demishassabis and @DarioAmodei, who are running the two best AI labs in the world both have PhDs. Jim Simons, who founded one of the biggest hedge funds in the world had a PhD. Eric Schmidt, Google’s first outside CEO, quite successful, had one, too. So did did Intel’s Cofounder Gordon Moore (of Moore’s law fame). As usual @beffjezos is talking out of his rear end.
#153Gary Marcus@GARYMARCUSHa. @demishassabis and @DarioAmodei, who are running the two best AI labs in the world both have PhDs. Jim Simons, who founded one of the biggest hedge funds in the world had a PhD. Eric Schmidt, Google’s first outside CEO, quite successful, had one, too. So did did Intel’s Cofounder Gordon Moore (of Moore’s law fame).
As usual @beffjezos is talking out of his rear end.
Beff (e/acc)@beffjezos@elonmusk @iScienceLuvr Finishing PhD is an anti-signal in many cases. If you didn't learn to go to drop out go to industry and build real things, then you are probably too theory-pilled
#331François Fleuret@FRANCOISFLEURETTBH the "core" stuff: imagining what has not been imagined, listening to you intuition to make it a tangible achievement under the constraints of reality, this is the same for both methinks.
François Fleuret@francoisfleuretIMO a researcher studies a problem that may not be solvable, while an engineer solves a problem that is considered solvable.
#331François Fleuret@FRANCOISFLEURETIMO a researcher studies a problem that may not be solvable, while an engineer solves a problem that is considered solvable.
Yacine Mahdid@yacinelearningThis sort of mindset is probably why xAI failed to catch up to other frontier labs.
If he wants to make SpaceXAI into a frontier lab, hope he changes his mindset.
Though being a cloud provider is probably something they can easily excel in anyway lol (Colossus is impressive!)
Parmita Mishra@parmitaThis is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my life
Musk is retarded
@francoisfleuret Engineers dig into local minima. Scientists find deeper ones. Elon’s view is a path to failure in AI.
François Fleuret@francoisfleuretIMO a researcher studies a problem that may not be solvable, while an engineer solves a problem that is considered solvable.
#687Bojan Tunguz@TUNGUZA very good way of putting it.
François Fleuret@francoisfleuretIMO a researcher studies a problem that may not be solvable, while an engineer solves a problem that is considered solvable.
@elonmusk @iScienceLuvr Finishing PhD is an anti-signal in many cases.
If you didn't learn to go to drop out go to industry and build real things, then you are probably too theory-pilled
Elon Musk@elonmusk@iScienceLuvr Putting “Ph.D.” in your social media name is a sure sign of a pompous retard
#999Cody Blakeney@CODE_STARIn this way most people with the title of researcher are not doing research. And I think often the ROI from these “researchers” is higher.
François Fleuret@francoisfleuretIMO a researcher studies a problem that may not be solvable, while an engineer solves a problem that is considered solvable.